I Have Something to Say
WHEELIE BINS
There was huge excitement in the neighbourhood I lived in several years back, when our long awaited wheelie bins were being distributed. From my vantage point in the bay window I noticed several neighbours opposite strolling, arms crossed, to their gates and peering up the hill to see how far the bin delivery lorry had got.
It was fun seeing how exercised other road users became, being held up by the massive delivery lorry. You could feel the exasperation as drivers patiently waited for traffic coming down the hill to ease up so they could go the wrong way around the keep-left bollards.
None of us neighbours could wait to see how easy it would be from that day on to take our rubbish out. The woman next door down to me was out front, fascinated by the sight of council workers unloading scores of bins, tilting them onto their wheels and pushing them to all the houses. Personally, I was too cool for that. It was novel having a new dustbin, but not something to get thrilled about.
When the bin wheelers got near to my house, I went upstairs and watched from the front bedroom. To give myself a more legitimate purpose for being in the upper bay window, I half heartedly dusted my dressing table (It was too cluttered for me to dust it properly).
For some reason, my bin was wheeled all the way up to my door. I don’t know why. I heard it being bumped up the bottom step. I heard the accompanying leaflet being shoved through the letterbox. I heard another bin being wheeled up next door’s driveway. Maintaining dignity, I slowly descended the stairs and opened my front door to take possession.
And there it was. A shiny new charcoal grey dustbin, on the lowest of the three steps leading up to my door. I opened the lid and sniffed the new plasticky smell. Tipping the dustbin towards me, I sat down on the top step and slid my feet in. I figured that the top of the dustbin would be level with halfway between my waist and my armpits. Then I kind of flumped my bottom down the step and slithered my legs, and then my bottom, right in.
It would have been all right if a gust of wind hadn’t blown the front door shut, and startled me, because I couldn’t remember whether it was on the latch or not. Anyway, in response to being startled, I shrunk in alarm, then made a violent upward movement.
The dustbin righted itself with me in it. I couldn’t quite reach the doorknob, and i was also on a step, so there was no chance of tipping forward without risking serious injury.
Several thoughts hit me at the same time. One, clearly, was that I was stuck. Another was that I was probably going to look awfully silly to whoever rescued me. There were quite a number of supplementary thoughts too, but I won’t go into them here. Suffice it to say that I closed the lid in case anyone thought I was being thrown away the first time a dustbin large enough became available.
It seemed like hours before my lord and master came home, although it probably wasn’t anywhere near an hour. More like fifteen minutes. Of solid panicking. The man next door had been lying in wait for him (who cares why?) and came bounding up our drive. Being seen by them both, at the same time, was inevitable. I found it difficult to explain myself.
They got the dustbin down the bottom step together, and tipped it up so I could crawl out.
To be fair, he didn’t laugh in front of me. He went next door to do that.
There was huge excitement in the neighbourhood I lived in several years back, when our long awaited wheelie bins were being distributed. From my vantage point in the bay window I noticed several neighbours opposite strolling, arms crossed, to their gates and peering up the hill to see how far the bin delivery lorry had got.
It was fun seeing how exercised other road users became, being held up by the massive delivery lorry. You could feel the exasperation as drivers patiently waited for traffic coming down the hill to ease up so they could go the wrong way around the keep-left bollards.
None of us neighbours could wait to see how easy it would be from that day on to take our rubbish out. The woman next door down to me was out front, fascinated by the sight of council workers unloading scores of bins, tilting them onto their wheels and pushing them to all the houses. Personally, I was too cool for that. It was novel having a new dustbin, but not something to get thrilled about.
When the bin wheelers got near to my house, I went upstairs and watched from the front bedroom. To give myself a more legitimate purpose for being in the upper bay window, I half heartedly dusted my dressing table (It was too cluttered for me to dust it properly).
For some reason, my bin was wheeled all the way up to my door. I don’t know why. I heard it being bumped up the bottom step. I heard the accompanying leaflet being shoved through the letterbox. I heard another bin being wheeled up next door’s driveway. Maintaining dignity, I slowly descended the stairs and opened my front door to take possession.
And there it was. A shiny new charcoal grey dustbin, on the lowest of the three steps leading up to my door. I opened the lid and sniffed the new plasticky smell. Tipping the dustbin towards me, I sat down on the top step and slid my feet in. I figured that the top of the dustbin would be level with halfway between my waist and my armpits. Then I kind of flumped my bottom down the step and slithered my legs, and then my bottom, right in.
It would have been all right if a gust of wind hadn’t blown the front door shut, and startled me, because I couldn’t remember whether it was on the latch or not. Anyway, in response to being startled, I shrunk in alarm, then made a violent upward movement.
The dustbin righted itself with me in it. I couldn’t quite reach the doorknob, and i was also on a step, so there was no chance of tipping forward without risking serious injury.
Several thoughts hit me at the same time. One, clearly, was that I was stuck. Another was that I was probably going to look awfully silly to whoever rescued me. There were quite a number of supplementary thoughts too, but I won’t go into them here. Suffice it to say that I closed the lid in case anyone thought I was being thrown away the first time a dustbin large enough became available.
It seemed like hours before my lord and master came home, although it probably wasn’t anywhere near an hour. More like fifteen minutes. Of solid panicking. The man next door had been lying in wait for him (who cares why?) and came bounding up our drive. Being seen by them both, at the same time, was inevitable. I found it difficult to explain myself.
They got the dustbin down the bottom step together, and tipped it up so I could crawl out.
To be fair, he didn’t laugh in front of me. He went next door to do that.
